{"id":772,"date":"2012-01-05T17:23:57","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T23:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/?page_id=772"},"modified":"2012-03-29T19:16:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T01:16:00","slug":"772-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/?page_id=772","title":{"rendered":"The Bochum Raid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Bochum Raid<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Certain periods in our lives\u00a0were experienced with such intensity that they remain deeply etched in memory. The short time that Emmy and I were at Linton-on-Ouse was such a time. There was only the present, and it was full of excitement fear\u00a0and for me, glory.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

David Sokoloff February 1996<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On\u00a0 November 4\u00a0 1944 at 5.30 pm , a four-engine Halifax heavy bomber of 408 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, took off from its base at Linton-on Ouse in Yorkshire in the north of England. It’s mission was to bomb an oil refinery at \"\"<\/a>Bochum in the Ruhr valley industrial area of Germany a few miles east of Essen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Alan Stables, our nineteen year old bombardier, wrote a report of the raid in his log book after he returned. He came across the account fifty one years later and sent it to Emmy and me. While we were on flying “operations” Emmy and I were living off base with our year old daughter Mitzi. Using Alan’s memoir we have filled in some background to give a more complete picture of what it was like during what was a momentous experience for us so long ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Home base of 408 the Goose Squadron RCAF\u00a0 was located in the north of England, ten miles northwest of the city of York at\u00a0 Linton-on-Ouse. Linton housed two squadrons, 408 the “Goose”\u00a0 Squadron, and 426 the “Thunderbird” Squadron. Linton was one of seven\u00a0 operational and four training airbases which made up 6 Group, which was a predominately Canadian The RCAF\u00a0 provided the pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and gunners, all the crew that\u00a0 is, except the flight engineers who were provided by the RAF Group headquarters\u00a0 were at Allerton Park Castle, a 75 room Victorian mansion near\u00a0 Knaresborough Initially at Linton the aircrews flew Wellingtons but later converted to Lancasters and Halifaxes. During the\u00a0war 6 Group lost more than 1500 bombers not including those that crashed in\u00a0 England. Each crew was made up of seven men so well over 10,000 failed\u00a0 to return from operations. The two squadrons at Linton lost 321 bombers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There were seven of us in the crew, I was\u00a0the pilot; I was twenty four years old and had been at Yale University studying\u00a0 Architecture and had joined the RCAF in Montreal. John Sargent, our twenty three year old\u00a0 navigator was an accountant who lived in New Hazelton way up in northern\u00a0British Columbia. John was a mystic. I think he was part Indian. After the war\u00a0he owned the store and the movie theater in their small town where he and his sons taught wilderness survival techniques to oil exploration personnel<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Alan Stables was nineteen years old.\u00a0 He came from Port Alice in British Columbia.\u00a0 He was a wild man, full of energy and devilment.\u00a0\u00a0He was a born leader and a dominant personality.\u00a0\u00a0He was competent\u00a0and fearless, reckless and warm-hearted.\u00a0\u00a0 His father had managed a paper mill up northern British Columbia His father was a tough hard man.\u00a0\u00a0 Alan inherited his toughness but not his hardness.<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Allan and Hex<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dick Richardson, our\u00a0 RAF flight-engineer was a twenty-two year old Englishman from\u00a0 Darlington, a town not very far from our base. He replaced Vic Weston who had\u00a0 trained with us at Dishforth Heavy Conversion Unit but had gone *LMF when we were posted to 408 Squadron.\u00a0 *LMF, “Lack of Moral Fibre”\u00a0 were the words recorded in the record of aircrew persnnel who refused to fly on operations. They were then stripped of rank and posted to some other base The threat of being classified LMF hung over crews to discourage them from turning back on raids.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We ourselves turned back on a deep penetration raid to Magdeburg. One of our engines cut shortly after take-off., and we couldnt get it restarted. We had to fly around below 400 feet until the main bomber force started to climb as they reached the enemy coast. \u00a0We then climbed to 1000 feet, jettisoned our bombs.We returned to a very cold reception at our base. \u00a0Luckily for us investigation showed an airlock in a fuel line. Scotty Frazier, who\u00a0 came from Melita in Manitoba, was our wireless operator. He was twenty five\u00a0 years old. He and Alan were close friends and talked about the possibility\u00a0 of opening a tavern together after the war if they survived. Alan changed his mind \u00a0and went to University. He ended up as Superintendent of Schools for the Victoria School District in\u00a0 British Columbia.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lloyd Swindells, our mid-upper gunner was nineteen\u00a0 years old. He came from Vancouver. We called him “the Baron” because he was so immaculate in his dress and and fastidious with\u00a0 his personal possessions. His mother\u00a0ran a stationary store in Vancouver\u00a0 which he took over after the war. \u00a0Lloyd also became the athletic coach for the Canadian Olympic track team He was very successful and dearly loved He was gentle man. Alan and Scotty teased him unmercifully.
\nDave Hardy, our rear \u00a0gunner, was nineteen years old and came from from Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Like his father before him in the first world war, he became a prisoner of war. 1 did not know him well, Alan kept him in line. Hex Hexemer was our\u00a0 ground crew chief. He came from Toromto. He was thirty nine years old. He\u00a0 took care of cur aircraft as though we were his own kids.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Emmy and I and our year old daughter Mitzi\u00a0lived at the nearby village of Tholthorpe with Mr, and Mrs Harland. He was the \u00a0local butcher. I had a car which my father had loaned me since while “on operations” I was entitled to a petrol ration. I was allowed to live off\u00a0 base as long as I was within three miles of Linton. Tholthorpe village, which was within the flight pattern of Tholthorpe\u00a0 airbase, was one of the eight airfields within a ten mile radius of \u00a0Linton.John Sargent lived at the Officers’ mess \u00a0at Linton which was a pre-war permanent base with brick buildings equipped with central heating. The officers’ mess had a bar, a dining room, a main lounge with comfortable armchairs, and a ladies’lounge with a piano! Officers were assigned “batmen” who were WAAFs who were responsible for looking after their rooms.\u00a0\u00a0 John recieved a DFC a year after he was discharged.<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Beningbrough Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The rest of the crew, who were NCOs lived close to the base at Beningbrough Hall, a beautiful manor house built in 1716 belonging to Lady Chesterfield. The house\u00a0and estate are now part of the National Trust.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After I completed OTU, the operational\u00a0 training course, with my original crew on the\u00a0outdated twin-engine Wellington heavy bomber I contracted pneumonitis. I spent three\u00a0 weeks in a hospital in London. My original crew was assigned to another pilot\u00a0 and went on without me I “inherited” a new crew who were without a\u00a0 pilot. Their pilot had been shot down while a passenger on his\u00a0 “familiarization” trip. Since the Halifax\u00a0 carried only one pilot, it was standard procedure for a new pilot coming to the\u00a0 Squadron to go as a passenger with an experienced crew on at least one\u00a0 operation. He would get a fee! of things before he went as skipper with his own\u00a0 crew I flew on two “familiarization” trips, one to Osnabruck in
\ndaylight, and one to Kiel at night<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When we ourselves became an experienced\u00a0 crew, we took new pilots on a “familiarization” trips. They were\u00a0 amazed at how the crew would respond to orders before they were given This was\u00a0 because we flew at night and were, in a sense, flying alone, if we were at the\u00a0 right height, at the right place, at the right time, we would be in the\u00a0 comparative safety of the main bomber stream. We only knew for certain that we\u00a0 were not alone when we saw the loom of another aircraft, or the glow of\u00a0 someone’s exhausts, or when a flash lit up the sky. Since mid-air collisions\u00a0 were not uncommon and keeping a good look-out for fighters was critical, we\u00a0 were very dependent on each other for survival and we became closely “tuned”to each other.<\/p>\n

Our aircraft\u00a0 “F” for Freddie was a Handley-Page Halifax Mark VI1 heavy bomber powered by four 1680\u00a0 horse-power Bristol “Hercules” sleeve-valve radial engines. The plane’s loaded weight was 65000 pounds\u00a0 maximum. The fuel capacity was 2196 gallons of gasoline. The plane could carry\u00a0 a 14000 pound bomb load. The maximum range\u00a0 was 1800 miles with a service ceiling of 20000 feet. Cruising speed loaded was 170\u00a0 miles an hour.\u00a0\u00a0 Maximum speed was 280\u00a0 miles per hour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The aircraft was equipped with a mid-upper\u00a0 gun turret with two 30 caliber machine guns, and a rear gun turret with four 30\u00a0 caliber machine guns. The gunners had electrically\u00a0 heated flying suits. The rear gunners removed the rear Plexiglass panel in\u00a0 order to improve their night vision. In winter at night at 19000 feet it could\u00a0 reach 80 degrees below zero Fahrenheit! The the plane had no armor other\u00a0 than a a steel plate behind the pilot.<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Bombadier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alan,\u00a0the\u00a0 bombardier,\u00a0with his bombsight,was up in the nose.\u00a0\u00a0Behind him\u00a0 sat John Sargent the navigator. John had a\u00a0small\u00a0 window\u00a0 on\u00a0 which\u00a0 was painted\u00a0 a vase with flowers to make things\u00a0more homelike.\u00a0\u00a0 John and Alan shared\u00a0\u00a0the operation of the two major radar navigation systems, Gee and H2S Gee allowed fixes\u00a0 to be taken by “strobing” onto a cathode screen.the elliptical radar signals being broadcast from England. Gee was very accurate but had a limited range and was subject to jamming.It became less and less effective the deeper we penetrated enemy territory.\u00a0\u00a0H2S was a blind map-reading scanner. Unfortunately the scans were often difficult to interpret since the equipment was somewhat primitive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Scotty Wireless Operator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Behind the navigator sat Scotty the wireless operator. Scotty’s ceiling was the my floor Scotty’s job was an unenviable one He had to monitor the quarter-hourly broadcasts from Bomber Command,and in between broadcasts he had to listen in case anything else was transmitted which might affect us. In the target area Master-Bombers would direct the main stream, they would tell us for example to bomb upwind of the yellow target indicators Scotty had to sit in his tiny dark box just listening under circumstances requiring iron nerves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Behind me was Dick Richardson’s flight-engineer’s station with the fuel and engine gauges and controls. Dick helped me during take-off and landing as we did not have power assists and it took two of us to manage the “thirty-ton truck” Dick was happy that we were assigned the Halifax Vlls which were equipped with radial engines; he didn’t like the in-line glycol cooled engines on the Halifax 1 l’s which we flew during final Heavy Conversion training.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Although the Halifaxes suffered heavier losses than the Lancasters due to the their 2000 foot height ceiling disadvantage, the survival rate among Halifax crews who were shot down was higher than that of the crews flying Lancasters. This was due to the design of the Halifax which had well placed escape hatches. The wireless operator and the navigator were located in the nose of the aircraft close to the forward escape hatch instead of in the mid-section of the fuselage as in the Lancaster.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The following is a transcript of Allan Stables’ log :<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Being our thirteenth trip, the whole crew was a bit nervous Superstition was usual among air crews. In our crew, Sok our skipper, had to bring his battered everyday uniform cap. One crew suffered because their good luck charm was their skipper’s white sweater which could not be washed or cleaned without risking losing its protection.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The first Page of Allans Log<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Once all the complete crews were present at the briefing room, the briefing officer spelled out the target, the route, the take off time , the speeds and altitudes, the points where we had to change course and or height, available emergency airfields, the composition of the raid and its purpose, which was the destruction of an oil refinery outside the city of Bochum.\u00a0 <\/em>Then the meteorological officer gave us the weather forecast for the <\/em>trip and it didn’t look good. We were to climb through the heavy <\/em>overcast, climbing up through holes in the clouds as heavy icing was <\/em>expected.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On a raid to Chemnitz, southeast of Leipzig,. We took off in icy conditions. Our squadron lost three out of fourteen Halifaxes shortly after take-off due to heavy icing. One of the bombers crashed in York killing six of the seven man crew. The seventh was the wireless-operator who baled out too low for his parachute to open fully. When the plane hit the ground and exploded, the blast blew him up into the air opening his parachute. He was injured but was the only one who survived. Below is my “Captain’s of aircraft map” of the Chemnitz raid on which we were airborne 9 hours 15 minutes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

CAPTAINS\u00a0\u00a0 Of \u00a0AIRCRAFT\u00a0\u00a0 MAP\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0NEWCASTLE to PRAGUE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Captains of Aircraft Map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Take- off was scheduled for 4:00 PM. Once a raid was announced the navigators and bombardiers had to go to the briefing shack at least a half an hour before the rest of the crew to prepare their flight plans. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The raid was to consist of 400 Lancaster and Halifax heavy bombers\u00a0 carrying a mixed load of heavy case high explosive bombs and incendiaries. We\u00a0 were scheduled to be airborne for six hours. “Mosquito” were to mark the target\u00a0with green and red target indicators. De Haviland” Mosquitos” had twin\u00a0 Rolls-Royce engines and carried a pilot and a wireless-operator\/navigator. They\u00a0 were used by the Master Bombers as part of the Pathfinder Force to mark the\u00a0target.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John, our navigator, looked occasionally\u00a0 up at the overcast sky saying “Why the hell don’t the bastards scrub it in\u00a0 this weather?” The Catholic Chaplain came around to give us comfort.\u00a0 Finally the skipper called “It’s okay boys, ready for starting.” We\u00a0 climbed in through the rear escape hatch giving each other a friendly pat on\u00a0 the rear and getting in a word or two of encouragement and good luck to our\u00a0 tail gunner who we normally wouldn’t see again until we landed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We settled into take-off\u00a0 positions, lying down in the crash position behind the main spar as one by one\u00a0 our engines roared into life. Sok’s cool voice with its English accent over the\u00a0 intercom ran through his take-off checks “Hydraulics trim mixture pitch\u00a0 fuel flaps gyros, etc. Then he and Dick Richardson ran the engines up the to\u00a0 full power to check the magnetos and the instruments.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Once we were airborne we went to our\u00a0 “battle” positions listening to the interchange between the pilot and\u00a0 the engineer… “lock throttles – adjust the pitch on the starboard outer\u00a0 – wheels up and locked Skipper synchronizing engines – adjusting trim tabs –\u00a0 throttle back to climbing boost” . Sok said “Every one check back\u00a0 when in position.”. Then we all called back starting with me then John,\u00a0 then Scotty, then Lloyd the mid-upper gunner, and last Dave Hardy the rear gunner.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
The Crew of My Vauxhall car<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sok said “Okay John give me a\u00a0 course”. We climbed up through the scattered clouds into the eastern\u00a0 darkness with the fading light behind us, leveling out at seven hundred feet.\u00a0\u00a0 We would hold this heading and altitude over the North Sea until we were within\u00a0 forty miles of the Dutch coast in order to avoid enemy radar. Then would have\u00a0to climb like hell to be at fourteen thousand feet above the range of light\u00a0 flak as we crossed the enemy coast.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We had settled in but as usual I was\u00a0 concerned about my sandwiches, chocolate bar, and apple. If thev were located\u00a0 too close to the exhaust heaters they would melt and if they were too far them\u00a0 would freeze solid since at final altitude it would probably be about seventy\u00a0 degrees below zero Fahrenheit \u2014 unfortunately the distance between too close\u00a0 and too far was only about six inches. An enormous amount of creative effort\u00a0 and energy was devoted to this problem by our ground crew.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It was a routine\u00a0 flight to the Dutch coast with the checks continuing <\/em>between\u00a0the pilot and the navigator and the tension wore off. Now the <\/em>gunners\u00a0 had to search the sky for night-fighters. If they saw them first we <\/em>had a\u00a0 pretty good chance of getting away. From the nose position I tried <\/em>to watch\u00a0 below and slightly behind, This was our blind spot where we were <\/em>most\u00a0 vulnerable to enemy night-fighters equipped with upward-firing <\/em>twenty millimeter cannon.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Coming up to the\u00a0 Dutch coast we could see flashes of light flak and the <\/em>beautiful\u00a0 trace it makes streaming upwards as if fired from a hose. It was <\/em>dark now\u00a0 and every now and again we would see the loom of one of our <\/em>own\u00a0 aircraft which was comforting because it meant we were part of the <\/em>bomber stream<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
Our Original Crew at Dishforth Heavy Conversion Training Unit\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

At this point we started climbing . We\u00a0began to have difficulty at about ten thousand feet and by fourteen thousand\u00a0 feet Dick suspected that we had carburetor icing . We had gone on oxygen at\u00a0 twelve thousand feet and we had to climb to nineteen thousand which was our\u00a0 height to bomb <\/em>The aircraft at the head of the bomber\u00a0 stream were at the lowest level with those following stacked up increasing\u00a0 heights so as to lessen the danger of running into someone else’s bombs. Sok\u00a0 came over the intercom ordering me to jettison some of the bombs as the\u00a0 aircraft just wouldn’t climb. I went back and jettisoned half the load but the\u00a0 best we could make was an extra 1000 feet. We were five thousand feet below
\neveryone else, a very dangerous position to be in and we had at least another\u00a0 hour and a half to go to the target. Scotty went back to shovel out the\u00a0 Window*. Then he returned to his radio to receive the quarter-hourly broadcast
\nfrom bomber command Then he backtuned his transmitter to German fighter\u00a0 vector-control frequency and broadcast static at full volume from a microphone\u00a0 next to our generator.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022Window was introduced in July 1943. It consisted of 9 inch strips of\u00a0 aluminum foil which showed up on the German radar screens rendering them virtually useless .\u00a0 The German response\u00a0 was to use various forms of illumination available at the target area to make\u00a0 the bombers\u00a0 visible to the night-fighters. Window was still useful in disguising the size\u00a0 of the incoming force and in\u00a0 blinding the radar controlled Flak guns.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ahead the searchlights, hundreds of them came to life, pointing\u00a0 accusing fingers against the black sky. I wondered how the hell we would get\u00a0 through them at this altitude without being “coned”, but I didn’t\u00a0 have much time to wonder as the rear gunner yelled “fighter port go”.\u00a0\u00a0 Down we went to the left in a “corkscrew.” This was our evasive action,\u00a0 but very shortly the rear gunner called to resume course telling us that a\u00a0 Messerschmidt 210 had made a pass at us.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
Pilots Cockpit<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0We were now starting\u00a0 into the outer defense of searchlights protecting <\/em>the Ruhr industrial area. .\u00a0\u00a0 “Aircraft coned on our starboard beam up” I yelled I watched it for a\u00a0 few seconds struggling in the cone like a fly in a spider’s web, flak poured up\u00a0 at it and a Lancaster went down.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Ready for run-up to the target”\u00a0 \u2014 “Christ” I yelled as a fighter came head on at us. The trace of his\u00a0 cannon seemed to be coming right at me . I closed my eyes and said a prayer.\u00a0 The engineer yelled “Port engine on fire Skip, let’s get the hell\u00a0 out.” The cannon shells of the fighter had hit our port inner engine and\u00a0 as I looked out I could see the flames licking back over the wing in which our\u00a0 gas tanks were stored. Sok’s voice came cool over the intercom “Feathering
\nport inner, hit the graviner* switches Dick, prepare to abandon aircraft, bomb\u00a0 doors open, drop your bombs bomb-aimer”<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

*The graviner switches controlled\u00a0 compressed incombustible carbon-dioxide which could be sprayed into the engines and hopefully\u00a0 serving as engine fire extinguishers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\/ looked out, my bombsight was on the\u00a0 target area now burning and smoking from the earlier bombs. . The bomb doors\u00a0 were open and I pressed the release tit feeling the bump as the bombs left the\u00a0 aircraft. Then the searchlights coned us and flak started coming up. What happened then was that as 1 was dropping\u00a0 the bombs the crew left their stations and went to the exits. Sok stayed at the\u00a0 controls but didn’t open his escape hatch but put the plane into a steep dive
\nto put out the fire. I was in the nose trying to untangle my intercom cord from\u00a0 my parachute wondering if I would ever get them apart. I was about to give up\u00a0 when John signaled to me. He yelled into my ear, “Hang onto me and we’ll \u00a0go together.” John knew as well as I did that this was crazy.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Emmy, Mitzi and I<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0Finally we were down to four thousand feet\u00a0and out of the searchlights. Sok called the gunners but got no reply. “Bomb-aimer\u00a0 please check the crew. Navigator give me a course.” The dive had put out\u00a0 the fire. I went back to the rear to see if Dave Hardy was hurt. I found the\u00a0 Baron by the rear escape hatch holding his head but not plugged in. “What\u00a0 the hell are you doing?” I yelled in his ear. “We’re OK, get back in\u00a0 the goddamn rear turret” “OK, Al, thanks” “What for you \u00a0nut” I replied. Then I tried to get into the turret, but had to report to\u00a0 Sok that it was impossible.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Baron wanted to talk but I was off to\u00a0the rear turret which was jammed sideways and Dave Hardy was gone. This was\u00a0 serious because it meant that now we were\u00a0defenseless against stern attacks.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Rear gunners baled out by rotating the\u00a0turret and dropping out backwards. Unfortunately Dave Hardy had pulled out his intercom\u00a0plug and hadn’t heard that we had got the fire out and when he baled out he jammed the rear gun turret sideways.<\/em><\/p>\n

We had come out of the target in a diving\u00a0 turn to head between two groups of lights on the ground. I had a hunch, and\u00a0 instead of heading between them I told Sok to go over the group on the right.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a lucky hunch as the German flak batteries had been placed between the\u00a0 lights which were decoys <\/em><\/div>\n
Me with Dick Richardson<\/div>\n

. We could see the searchlights coning\u00a0 a couple of kites. There was no flak, but fighters came in and in a few seconds\u00a0 two more bombers went down in flames In the hurry and excitement as we opened\u00a0 the escape hatches in order to bale out, the navigator’s log and maps had been\u00a0 sucked out of the aircraft Now John had to take us home by “dead\u00a0 reckoning” and guesswork. Our main fuse panel had been hit. We had no\u00a0 radar, no fuel gauges, and we didn’t know whether we had lost fuel.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then the mid-upper gunner reported two\u00a0 fighters tailing us. One came in and we corkscrewed* to starboard. During the\u00a0 next hour and we were attacked seven times. We tried taking shelter in what\u00a0 little cloud there was. A couple of times when we came out of it a fighter\u00a0 flare would drop and in would come a fighter. We were now down to two thousand\u00a0 feet. We lost him and kept heading west while John was trying to figure where\u00a0 we were.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Me with Dick Richardson<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

* <\/em>The “Corkscrew was standard\u00a0 evasive action from fighter attack. If the attack was from the left and below\u00a0 you headed into the attack with a dive to the left followed by a climbing roll\u00a0 up to the right.\u00a0\u00a0 Since the fighter pilot had to aim ahead of\u00a0 the target he was forced to aim blind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

With no fuel gauges\u00a0 and at our last reading our fuel registering low, Dick said that we should try\u00a0 to land as soon as we were beyond enemy held <\/em>territory. John said\u00a0 that we should make for Brussels which he thought <\/em>was about\u00a0 fifty miles to our north. As we headed towards the city we <\/em>could see\u00a0 the air-field runway flares lit up. We had already been forced <\/em>so low by\u00a0 taking evasive action that we were probably down below 300 <\/em>feet\u00a0 during the last ten minutes of our approach. We did not identify <\/em>ourselves\u00a0 or turn on our lights as we didn’t want to expose our position to <\/em>any\u00a0 fighters which might have been lurking. They would follow the <\/em>bomber stream on the way back\u00a0 picking off stragglers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Once when returning from a\u00a0 raid we were stacked up waiting our turn to make our final approach when Lloyd\u00a0 yelled “Jesus there’s a plane next to us with black crosses on its\u00a0 side!” It was a Junkers\u00a0 88.\u00a0\u00a0 They were “Intruders”.\u00a0\u00a0 They would strafe aircraft\u00a0 as they were about to land.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
The skipper made out\u00a0 the landing strip. We came in <\/em>down-wind very fast with no flaps or\u00a0 brakes as we <\/em>had\u00a0 lost our hydraulic fluid. Everyone was in crash\u00a0 positions with the escape hatches open and down we came. We hit once, bounced on the runway, hit again and our\u00a0 undercarriage collapsed. We were\u00a0 down on our belly as we tore past the control\u00a0 car at the end of the runway and across an open field with a railroad track\u00a0 through it. One big bump as we\u00a0crossed a ditch and earth came up through\u00a0 the floor of the kite and we stopped about two hundred feet from some houses. There was a mad scramble to get out before she blew up. We were lucky and she didn’t catch fire. Scotty got\u00a0 a black eye from someone’s knee\u00a0 climbing out. That was our only casualty.<\/em><\/div>\n

(We were equipped with tanks of\u00a0 compressed nitrogen which, filled up the gas tanks as thy emptied with a non-combustible\u00a0 mixture. This\u00a0 was unreliable even when no damage had been sustained.) Fire engines and\u00a0 ambulances came screaming <\/em>across the field. A truck stopped and picked\u00a0 us up <\/em>and\u00a0 we were taken to an office in the control tower.\u00a0\u00a0 After a short while we were taken by truck into Brussels to the Imperial Hotel a place with everything including a show lounge with live\u00a0 entertainment!\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>We got the driver to\u00a0 stop at a bar on the way where we traded a parachute for some <\/em>brandy.\u00a0\u00a0When we got to the hotel room it was difficult to sleep, we were <\/em>so keyed\u00a0 up. We drank brandy and lay awake for hours going over what <\/em>had happened<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The next morning a\u00a0 truck took us back to the airport which was a <\/em>shambles. It had\u00a0 been taken by the Allies only three days before. There <\/em>were\u00a0 piles of bombs alongside the runway and there were damaged <\/em>aircraft, both German and Allied\u00a0 all over the place.<\/em><\/p>\n

We went out to our\u00a0 plane to collect parachutes and souvenirs. It was half <\/em>full of\u00a0 dirt and we counted over a hundred bullet and flak holes. Sok <\/em>couldn’t\u00a0 find his sheepskin-lined leather jacket. The civilian armed guard <\/em>thought\u00a0 that we were accusing him of stealing it. There was a big <\/em>argument\u00a0 but. we found it in the plane. We were all impressed because we <\/em>didn’t know that Sok spoke\u00a0 French.<\/em><\/p>\n

We hung around till a snotty transportation\u00a0 officer told us we would <\/em>probably have to wait at least all day and\u00a0 maybe longer before we could <\/em>get a ride back to England. Sok told\u00a0 the officer that we’d be happy to <\/em>stay in Brussels for
\nas long as possible which made him change his mind and he got us onto a DC. 3\u00a0 “Dakota” transport that was taking some air <\/em>crew and some escaped prisoners\u00a0 back to England.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Scotty Frazier Moe Blad Allan Stables John
\nSargent David Sokolof, Dick Richardson, Lloyd Swindells,
\nHex Hexemer<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
We did twenty three more trips after the raid to Bochum\u00a0 At the beginning of our tour of operations we were lucky to do two short trips to\u00a0 France. We also did seven daylight, trips to Germany. These were small precision raids mainly to oil refineries. On a raid to the oil refinery at Castrop-Rauxel just\u00a0 north of Dortmund in the Ruhr, we were the deputy leader of 70 bombers with sixteen squadrons of fighter\u00a0 cover! With this massive fighter protection\u00a0 we suffered lower percentage losses. When we had done twenty five trips, Bomber command raised the number of required operations for a tour to 36. A few weeks after we finished our tour the required number of operations was reduced back to 30 because losses had increased\u00a0 again.<\/div>\n

John and Cathy’s wedding<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After we finished our\u00a0 tour John Sargent married Cathy, a Canadian nurse. The crew\u00a0 were at the wedding and I\u00a0 was best man. We’ve kept in touch with Cathy. We visited Kay Scotty’s\u00a0 widow in Salmon Arms Manitoba a few years ago , but we have lost touch with Lloyd’s wife Jeanne.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
There was a reunion\u00a0 of the squadron in 1980 in Vancouver. Dick Richardson, our engineer had\u00a0died and we had not kept in touch with Moe Blad our rear gunner At\u00a0the reunion we were the only crew which had five of its\u00a0seven crew members present and not only that but we all had our original wives!\u00a0\u00a0Sad to say within two years of the re-union\u00a0 John, Scotty, and Lloyd all died,\u00a0leaving only Allan and me as of this writing<\/div>\n

.Allan and Evelyn\u00a0 live in White Rock BC just over the border We stay in touch and we spend\u00a0 time together every year. This memoir is for all our children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n



\nAfter landmg from our last operation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bochum Raid Certain periods in our lives\u00a0were experienced with such intensity that they remain deeply etched in memory. The short time that Emmy and I were at Linton-on-Ouse was such a time. There was only the present, and it was full of excitement fear\u00a0and for me, glory.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 David Sokoloff February 1996   On\u00a0 November 4\u00a0 1944 at 5.30 pm , a four-engine Halifax heavy bomber of 408 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, took off from its base at Linton-on Ouse in Yorkshire in the north of England. It’s mission…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":431,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-772","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":97,"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/772\/revisions\/841"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forfreedom.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}